Susan's Purpose
by spellboundreader316
Summary: What if the reason Susan pulled away from the rest of the group was less about forgetting and more about protecting herself from a pain she knew was coming?
1. Chapter 1

Ariella stood to the side watching them shop together, just like they did everything else. She had an important message, but it was for the High Queen only. Aslan had told her today, so she would be patient. Finally, they decided to divide and conquer the remaining items on their list.

Approaching quickly, she swept into a curtsy. "Your majesty, I have an urgent message for your ears only."

Susan looked shocked, but kept her wits enough to give Ariella permission to speak.

"Your friends will soon be returning home, but Aslan's plan for you here is not yet complete," she announced with authority. "The Lion be with you."

Curtsying again, Ariella turned to leave, but Susan grabbed her arm to stop her.

"When?" was all Susan asked.

"No one but Aslan knows the time, least of all me, my Queen."

With that she walked away, bowing her head deeply and murmuring blessing to the other three as she passed them. They all stared at her until she was out of sight before crowding around Susan.

Edmund voiced everyone's thoughts with an incredulous "What was that?"

While the others broke into speculation, Susan thought back on what she had just been told. Her siblings and fellow consorts would be returning to Narnia without her, and it sounded like they wouldn't be coming back, at least not anytime soon. How would she go on? And what was Aslan's plan for her? How could she complete a job when she didn't know what it was?

Though she wanted to doubt what the strange girl had said, she couldn't. Not when her words had given her the same feeling in her gut that Aslan's had when He had told her that she would never be returning to Narnia. She hated those words with all her heart, but she had never doubted their truth. It had been the same with everything Aslan said, and as much as she despised it, to feel that again made her somehow feel at home, even though she simultaneously felt lonelier than ever.

She had felt lost the first time they had come back through the wardrobe. She had grieved when Aslan had told her and Peter that they wouldn't return. Listening to Edmund and Lucy's stories from aboard the Dawn Treader was like ripping off an old scab and pouring salt in the wound, but she would give anything to still have the chance to hear them again.

Normally, hearing that Peter would be able to go back without her would feel like betrayal, and it still might later, but now all she felt was empty and alone.

"...-an...Susan!" Peter's voice broke through her thoughts.

"Yes?"

"Are you okay?" They all looked worried. Susan wondered how long she had been lost in thought.

"I'm fine," she replied after a moment. "I was just remembering."

They nodded, all seeming to give themselves a moment to reminisce , before Edmund spoke up again.

"Well, if we have everything, perhaps we should call it a day and go home."

They all agreed, but the group of children that left the store was far more subdued than the one that had come in.


	2. Chapter 2

**_Constructive criticism is appreciated!_**

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Back at home, Susan's mind turned back to her musings at the store. What did Aslan want from her?

The first time she and her siblings had grown up had been in Narnia, and they had grown not only older, but also closer together. They had stood back to back with each other against varied foes and had come out victorious. They had learned how to shoulder burdens and responsibilities without crumbling. They had ruled in harmony, trusting the strengths of their fellow consorts, and making up where they lacked.

Coming back, they had been stripped of more than just titles—they had lost their identities. All they had left was each other. Even Professor Kirk couldn't commiserate with them, though he tried. Oh, he was wonderful for some things; just when you thought you would drown in homesickness he would be there with tea and a tale about a crow and it's joke. She loved him for that because he knew what it was like to be homesick for somewhere you will never see again. However, he had never ruled a country only to have a curfew again. He had never been told 'you'll understand when you're older' about something you've already experienced first-hand.

School had been even worse. They had been split up, the boys to one school and the girls to separate schools. The measure of her self-worth shifted from lives saved to arithmetic scores. Her peers' conversation were now filled with parties instead of how to maintain political stability. She was forced to find out about the war from second and third hand sources, and even then, she had no influence over their next move.

Why did she have to be so useless? Wasn't there some way to prove herself more grown-up than the gossip-mongers that surrounded her?

A year later, they had made it back to Narnia, but it was a far different Narnia from the one they had once ruled. This one was more broken, and Susan had been scared. She had been so scared that she hadn't seen Aslan. He had calmed her fears afterward, but it made her feel just as broken as this new Narnia.

Then Aslan had told her she was too old! Like they hadn't been so much older the first time.

Susan could feel the same indignation rising in her as she had felt then. Were they really supposed to be acting like the others their age? Even Lucy, the most childish of them all, acted older than her fellow classmates. What did Aslan want!

But then, Aslan had told Lucy and Edmund that they were too old as well. Maybe Aslan did want her to do something stupid; and if it separated her from her siblings, then the more the better. If they had figured out how to get home and hadn't told her, then she wanted nothing to do with them.

If her time in America had taught her anything, it was that she would get nowhere in this world without fighting for every inch and playing their game. All her people skills from court had to be completely revamped if they were to do her any good this time around. No one wanted a gentle queen, they wanted a simple princess.

It was decided—she would be a stupid child. Nylons and lipstick, here she comes. Maybe Jane would get here an invite to the next party.


	3. Chapter 3

Entertaining others had always come naturally to Susan. Maybe it was just years of practice in court, but Susan excelled at putting on a smile and saying exactly what someone wanted to hear. For this reason, she had only needed the one favor from Jane to secure herself a place on the guest list of all the major parties.

And it felt good. Sure, everyone was still shallow and stuck up, but it felt like, for Susan, that she had a place where she fit in again.

None of the others understood. Peter was in school, fast-tracking his way to greatness. He couldn't understand how she could enjoy doing something so beneath her potential. Edmund, always concerned with what was right, was upset at her for wasting so much money on selfish things. But Lucy—Lucy was the hardest to bear. She had twisted something Susan had said and was now convinced that Susan had completely forgotten Narnia. She wasn't entirely wrong; there were some things Susan had chosen to put out of her mind, but to believe that she could outright forget almost half her life was absurd. However, believe Lucy did, and her heartbreak had driven a wedge between them.

Susan told herself that she didn't care. That she was happy, and if her siblings couldn't be happy for her, then their opinions didn't matter. But it did matter, and it hurt so much in the private places she would never show anyone. If she cared to think about it, and most of the time she didn't, but when she did, she could remember them being proud of her. The approval in Peter's eyes when she proposed laws that had been thought out and written for the good of everyone involved. The joy in Edmund's smile when they had opened the first orphanage. The excitement that shone out of Lucy when they decided to travel somewhere.

Even back in this world there had been moments when they had gladly supported her. When she won a swimming competition, for example, or when she went to America with Mother and Father.

But they had grown up again. An unlike before, this time they had grown apart as well. Susan didn't mind—not really. In fact, she encouraged it. She hadn't corrected Lucy when she thought Susan was forgetting Narnia. Instead, she had planned a party during the next gathering of the "Friends of Narnia," and the next, and the one after that. She had stopped taking time to listen to Peter talk about what he was learning. She had even stopped donating to whatever Edmund's current cause was.

She got a job. It wasn't much, but it let her leave home. Susan could tell herself that she was moving on, growing up. That was what she wanted—sometimes.  
Most of the time nowadays, Susan didn't know what she wanted. What had started this whole mess was her desire to be less grown up, but whenever the family got together, it was a source of pride to try and be the most "grown-up" out of her siblings. Nothing made sense anymore. Not that it had been all that clear before. In fact, Susan felt just as lost as ever. Her siblings all seemed to have a calling, a reason for being, but all she had was what amounted to the leftover, loose change from somebody else's life.

So, Susan painted on a smile and went to parties because even if she was lost, at least she wasn't alone. Take that Aslan!


End file.
